The Thief
The Thief is a sneaky assassin; she relies on stealth, not health, to get the job done. Her (yes, “her”) attack does 1 damage but does more damage over time by poisoning the target and dealing 1 additional damage every 2 turns (1 full round) for 4 turns (2 full rounds) but there is a massive side note to this ability: poison will not take a unit’s final point of health, thus killing them, unless the target is left with only that final point of health when first attacked by the Thief. This may be a bit confusing to understand in text, so the following chart makes it simple to learn how much damage will be done to a unit and when, considering they have only been stabbed once by a Thief and no Priest or Bishop has cleansed them of poison, nor has the affected unit picked up a heal item from the board. Keep in mind that poison only checks to see if a unit will remain poisoned at the beginning of a turn so, if a poisoned unit had 2 health left at the end of its turn and is attacked for 1 damage on the opponent’s turn, the affected unit will die from poison at the start of their next turn because it still had 2 health when last assessed by the poison effect. The Thief’s defense action adds 1 to her movement ability and cloaks her from sight for either 2 turns, if she is attacked or if she attacks. This ability, combined with her poison, is what makes the Thief so deadly despite the fact she only has 2 health. In one turn, a Thief can be charged up by the King/Queen, cloak herself and move up to 6 spaces without the enemy knowing where she has gone. This is vital because, if the Thief can get to the opponent’s King/Queen in such a way that only he can attack her on the opponent’s next turn, it is essentially game over. Some obstacles will allow a King/Queen to escape a second stabbing on the Thief’s next turn which is the only way this does not result in game over every time, should you manage to achieve the above mentioned strategy. When playing as the Thief, your goal is to get near enough to the opponent’s King/Queen through stealth that you can stab him in such a way that your opponent will only be able to attack your Thief for 1 damage on the next turn. As long as the King/Queen doesn’t have an obstacle to block the Thief from attacking again, it is game over for the King/Queen. Keep in mind that a Thief can be boosted by a King/Queen, move 5 spaces and stab a piece all in one move. That is quite a bit of range but you can increase that range by 1 if you boost your Thief with your King/Queen 1 turn prior. Then you can cloak your Thief, move her up to 6 spaces ahead and stab a target on the following turn. Using this strategy, you can often reach your opponent’s King/Queen very quickly on small maps which are only 7 spaces across and catch your enemy off guard. Another way to use Thieves is to try and trick an opponent to placing the target unit next to a cloaked Thief. In this way, she can stab, cloak and run away hidden all in 1 turn. This is typically the ideal way to use your Thief. As you will read below, the Thief’s stealth can be countered pretty well so it is sometimes a good strategy to consider using 2 Thieves, even in just a 3x3 battle. In this way, you can cloak both thieves, but only move 1 all in one turn; thus making tracking of your Thieves more difficult. When playing against a Thief, awareness is the key. Once a Thief has cloaked herself, listen carefully. The delay between the sound she makes when she begins to move and the sound she makes when she lands will clue you in as to how far she moved; the longer the delay between sounds, the more she moved. Also, if you hear no movement sound, she did not move. Another massive tip is to be aware that all sounds in Oldage are spatially related, meaning, if you play with stereo headphones on and have the board centered on your monitor, you can actually hear which direction the Thief traveled. On top of that, if a thief stops in water or tall grass, you will see the water splash or the grass move, along with the corresponding sound effect and if they land on a square with a health item, that will be obvious as well. Knowing these things, if a Thief has moved and you see no indication of where they landed, you know they have not moved onto any water, tall grass or health item spaces. The next trick to narrowing down where the cloaked Thief has gone is to click on any units you have and see if they can’t move somewhere they should be able to. If there is an anomaly, the Thief is that anomaly and you can plan accordingly. Also, remember to consider if the Thief was charged by the King/Queen or not so as to make sure all viable spaces are being considered. All these tips combined give you a good way to keep Thieves in check.